Tag Archives: millenials

On April 6th, terrifying pictures of children and adults lying on the ground were flooding social media, denoting what The New York Times says is the “worst chemical attack in years” for Syria. At least 70 people were killed, and 100 hospitalized—many of them children. Many were devastated by this, but this news story only got so much attention over the course of the next few hours, and there were little to no following posts with fundraisers or support for Syria. Sadly, Twitter also lacked the typical hashtag go-to of millennials tweeting their support for a country in need.

The same day, much later, social media swarmed with pictures of posts regarding Pepsi. Pepsi recently released a very controversial ad starring Kendall Jenner that unintentionally degraded the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as underestimated the overall issue of police brutality. While this is definitely a massive issue, it is simultaneously acting as a distraction for what we all need to really worry about.

Our generation, particularly the millennials, are infatuated with bringing something down or making fun of people or things that mess up. It seems as though it’s easier to say “Haha, Pepsi is horrible,” than to discuss how scary a massive chemical poisoning is and what to do about it. An ad that does a horrible job of outlining a way to fix an issue is bad, but surely not as problematic as hundreds of children and adults dying from chemical attacks.

“What’s insightful about this is that it does show that the millennial generation will come together and tackle something that we all view as a problem.” Photo from: https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2016_09/1440106/160301-refugees-calais-terrorists-mdl-904_a417a7420770175b4dc9239cfd90e096.nbcnews-ux-2880-1000.jpg

Stephen Colbert recently praised Kendall Jenner, reminding us how our country is more divided than ever, “but today, it seems that everyone has come together to join the protest against the new protest ad from Pepsi.” What’s insightful about this is that it does show that the millennial generation will come together and tackle something that we all view as a problem, but it certainly doesn’t display our ability to attempt to solve something in the right way, let alone distinguish what’s important and what’s not.

So Pepsi made an incredibly unrelatable and offensive ad—it happens and, while they at least apologized, this is certainly not the worst possible thing that can occur right now. It seems that anything we can make funny tweets or memes about will get more attention, which is a more mundane approach and interpretation of a situation. However, our perceptions of events in relation to our excessive use of social media are getting a bit out of hand, as displayed by the reactions to Pepsi. While it might seem fun and easy to put down a company for making an awful commercial, there are more important things to focus on that will impact us more than a bad commercial ever will. The Pepsi ad might have offended some people in the short-run, but in the long-run, chemical poisoning and death should affect us even more and could affect us even worse if we don’t act and try to make a change.

I’m reminded of Ricegum every time that I’ve sat down to watch the presidential debates. For those of you who don’t know him, Bryan Le, best known as Rice Gum, is notorious for roasting people and their egos on YouTube. I don’t even feel the need to switch over to Crunchyroll or DramaFever with the way Hillary and Trump go at each other; so far they’ve been the best at keeping me entertained.

In less than 20 days, we’re to see a candidate emerge as the next President of the United States, and, no matter who it is, it’s sure to be historic to say the least. With the mass frustration of having to choose between “the lesser of two evils,” a good percent is leaning towards voting in Gary Johnson’s favor. But is that percentage enough?

“Voting for a third-party member means throwing your vote away.”

See, blind trust like that can be a dangerous thing. In case you forgot, we’re not a democracy; we’re a republic. It aggravates me when politicians will refer to us as a democracy, but yet we have a two-party system built that is made to discourage third-party members from rising, and then we have two main candidates that honestly just represent the top one percent, all while spouting nothing but pretty words, or ugly words as well in Donald’s case.

I am a strong supporter of Jill Stein, but we’ve never before had a third-party member become President. And, again, as long as we have an electoral college in place, this nation may never see one. It is true that they’ve come so far in the race, but, in the end, voting for a third-party member means throwing your vote away. Face it. And, yes, Gary Johnson is a third-party member.

The two options that that leaves us with are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The way I see it, with the amount of disapproval rating Trump’s got, there’s no stopping Clinton from winning the presidency–but that’s just my opinion. Happy voting!

We’re all familiar with the stories that start out with “when I was your age…” Usually this line is said by a grandparent or older relative who’s angry at the new generation, the millennials. There’s been a lot of harsh criticism against our generation. We’ve been told that we’re self-absorbed, tech-savvy, antisocial morons who can’t put down our phones for more than a few minutes. However, I disagree with the statement that we’re the worst generation ever.

Our generation has its flaws, just as any generation does. Sometimes I’m annoyed by the apathy for which my generation is so well-known. This spring break, I visited Boulder, Colorado for the first time. Boulder is a beautiful, young town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Walking around Boulder, which houses a campus for the University of Colorado, I noticed the town is mostly run by people closer to my age. Young professionals rule the city with new ideas and ways of thinking.

“We’ve been told that we’re self-absorbed, tech-savvy, antisocial morons who can’t put down our phones for more than a few minutes.”

Because of the younger, fresher minds, Boulder is super eco-friendly. I rarely see a Tesla on the streets on the East Coast, but in Boulder I saw quite a few of them. Electric cars and bicycles are strongly encouraged out west. As a matter of fact, walking or riding a bike may be even more convenient than driving in Boulder. I also saw many homes and buildings with solar panels.

Along with healthier cars and homes, the people out west are also much healthier. Whole Foods is a common choice for a supermarket; there’s no such thing as a Walmart in Boulder. Small businesses owned by young professionals flourish out west. One business in particular that caught my eye was called HungryBuffs. This was a small business started by a group of college kids that will deliver essentially any food to you, including McDonald’s. You pay a small delivery fee of around $5 and can have any of your favorite foods that wouldn’t normally be delivered. This business was obviously popular in Boulder and had a strong presence in the community.

While in Boulder, I felt that I was surrounded by my peers. If you’ve ever lived in a small eastern town, you know that it’s easy to sense the importance of elders in small communities. I’m all for respecting elders, but when they refuse to make changes and let their community advance, it’s time to let fresher eyes see the problems and find solutions.

The biggest reason I’ll never believe that our generation has totally screwed our country is because of what generations in the past have done. There are older generations who have caused wars that we couldn’t afford (here’s looking at you, Baby Boomers) and committed horrible atrocities such as the enslavement of Africans or the slaughter of Indians. The Industrial Revolution started long before we were a sparkle in our ancestors’ eyes, and now we’re the ones living with the environmental impact.

The comfort I felt in Boulder is something I wish I could experience at home. In my small town, youths don’t have power in the community. Because of this, very few high school graduates stay in the area, and progress can be extremely slow. The altitude in Boulder and the absence of smog also make the sky an unreal shade of blue.

Our generation has its flaws. We’re antisocial, we love our cell phones, we think it’s cool to”not care,” even though we do care a lot. However, I’ve seen what fresh minds can do to mold a community — and I believe that if we were passed the torch, we could do great things in our communities.

Black Coffee

Black Coffee is a joint media project created and produced by Whim and Radford on Camera. Black Coffee takes the talents of Radford’s musically gifted and provides them with an outlet to play for the community by means of student-run, student-produced media.